


Tearing Up the Seven Veils

by sheffiesharpe



Series: At Least There's The Football [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anthea is totally a ninja, Gratuitous Harry Potter References, Greg Lestrade has two nieces and is good at football, Greg Lestrade is secretly punk rock, Lestrade's patience is rewarded, M/M, awkward phonecalls, bowties are cool, clip-ons are rubbish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:38:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheffiesharpe/pseuds/sheffiesharpe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nieces' visit comes to an end, and Lestrade discovers one thing he's really wanted to know and one thing he really didn't.</p><p>Title from "This is Radio Clash" by The Clash (<i>obvisly</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tearing Up the Seven Veils

**Author's Note:**

> Warning that doesn't fit in the ticky boxes: one more-than-slightly-distressing conversation in this segment. If you can stomach regular _Sherlock_ canon (and the potential violence therein), you'll certainly be fine, but this chapter gets a little heavier than previous installments.

_Saturday_

When Lestrade wakes up, he’s disappointed to find Mycroft not in bed. It’s still early, earlier than before, the day just starting to lighten at its edges. There’s a creak of floorboards somewhere on this floor, and he rolls over, watches the rest of the room. The sound appears to be from the hallway—maybe from the other bedroom, the little closet.

He watches the doorway, still more than half-asleep, Mycroft’s pillow tucked under his cheek, and Mycroft appears, robe-clad and with a small towel in his hand. He slips into the room, heads toward the lav.

Lestrade inches closer to the edge of the bed. “Hey, early-bird.” He yawns.

Mycroft turns a smile toward him, but he keeps walking, wipes his jawline with the towel. Maybe he shaved downstairs? “Just a moment,” Mycroft says, and the door closes. The shower runs, and Lestrade devotes more few drowsy, blissful thoughts toward the idea of Mycroft in the shower. When the water cuts off, he rolls onto his side, props himself up on one elbow, tugs the sheet down to his hips, and waits.

Mycroft edges back into the room, wrapped in his dressing gown, one that Lestrade hasn’t seen before. It’s Black Watch tartan, looks like flannel. Mycroft’s shins are bare under it, and at the shawl collar, the purpled mark from last night. That’s its own kind of perfection. Mycroft glances at the bed.

“Minx,” he says, and it looks like he’s trying to walk toward the wardrobe. He makes it almost past the edge of the bed when he stops, back-tracks, and sits on the bed’s edge before kissing Lestrade. “Good morning.” His palm rests on Lestrade’s bicep, slides slowly. “You’re going to make me late.” His gaze slides—Lestrade feels his blood heat. Good. Mycroft leans in, nibbles a little at his earlobe, and Lestrade tilts his head for more. For a little while. “So very late,” Mycroft says.

Then he puts both hands in the middle of Mycroft’s back and pushes until Mycroft’s forced to stand or land on the floor. “Nope. You have to go on and run the free world.” Sliding out of bed, he stretches luxuriously, tries to pay Mycroft no mind. That is its own challenge.

Mycroft sets his jaw, opens the wardrobe, disappears behind the screen. One bare arm reaches, showing Mycroft’s shoulderblade, too, and he hangs the robe on the edge of the screen, quickly enough that he’s got no time to put anything on under it.

Mycroft cheats. Plain and simple: he cheats. Lestrade still hates the screen, but that’s not the worst thing to happen behind it.

Lestrade takes a deep breath. “You won’t leave until I’m out of the shower, right?”

“Certainly not,” Mycroft says, almost laughing.

***

Mycroft brings him coffee while he’s still wrapped in his towel, the cool of the room prickling his skin. The girls are still asleep downstairs, the house quiet. Mycroft sits on the edge of the bed with him, staring a bit at Lestrade’s bare legs, until he gets his own dressing gown, wraps it around him.

“I don’t want you to catch a chill,” is what he says.

Lestrade lifts an eyebrow.

Mycroft only reaches, ties the belt at his waist, and his fingertips slide along Lestrade’s side as he does it. “You’re the one who said I couldn’t be late.” One finger nudges the edge of his ticklish spot. He teases—it sounds good from him. Even though they both know that Mycroft must never be late and Lestrade wouldn’t want to make him so.

“Don’t know how you could ever be late, early as you were up.” If Mycroft needs to leave by half-seven, he was still awake, still out of bed a full two and a half hours before that. And even Mycroft doesn’t need that much time to get ready for the day. “Any particular reason?” Lestrade hopes he hasn’t started snoring. Will swore he only snored when he went to bed significantly drunk, and he’s inclined to believe that, but still. Or maybe Mycroft has come to the conclusion that sleeping with company isn’t all that restful because sometimes it really isn’t.

“Sometimes I don’t sleep, and I didn’t want to disturb you.” When Lestrade opens his mouth to say something else, Mycroft kisses him, preempts. “You weren’t disturbing me.” Mycroft stands up as though it’s difficult to pull away, and Lestrade can see the heavy bulge of his half-hard prick.

That’s flattering. He’s just sitting here, with his coffee. So he stares, openly, and grins, cheekily, until Mycroft huffs and turns away to select a tie. From the wardrobe, he asks after the plan for the day.

Lestrade sighs. He’d been hoping to ignore this part: acknowledging that it is Betsy and Corrie’s last full day. Their flight leaves tomorrow, mid-morning.

Mycroft glances up, gives him a fond look. But he’s also waiting for the answer.

And he can only shrug. “Whatever they want to do.” All three of them have been forcibly neglecting it. Maybe another trip to the British Museum. They’d only gotten through about a third of it before. Or the Victoria and Albert. Or they could just kick the football around a bit, finish up _Jeeves & Wooster_. “Haven’t made any sort of schedule.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Mycroft’s hands are a deft blur as does his tie. He’s the only person Lestrade knows who not only knows more than one way to do up his tie, but who makes visible choices about the knot based on the tie, the particular collar of the shirt, and the destined occasion.

“Mycroftish for, ‘I already have a plan’.” They’ve been through this. And Mycroft pauses, hands slowing. Lestrade stands up, drops his towel so he’s just wrapped in Mycroft’s dressing gown. It smells good, is soft and warm. “So what’s the plan?”

“Music?” He produces a small envelope from his attaché case, holds it out. “If you think they would like it.”

Lestrade peeks at the tickets: Rodrigo y Gabriela with guests from the London Symphony Orchestra. Betsy has only been going on about them forever. The seating numbers are nothing like what he expects. “Are these front row?” He knows it without asking, but he can’t avoid the obvious question, either. Also: “When did you get these?” How?

Mycroft nods, answers the first. “I thought Elizabeth might like to be near enough to see their hands properly. Is that all right?” He slides his jacket on. “Would you prefer to sit elsewhere?” Something about him seems a little nervous.

Lestrade takes a slow breath. “It’s perfect.” It’s too much, but it’s perfect. It’s going to require stopping off at his flat and picking up his good suit. And the girls are going to make him wear the purple shirt. He knows it. “Sort of nauseatingly so. You spoil us.”

Mycroft takes his free hand. “It’s a special occasion.” Lestrade suspects that the earnest look he gets is pretty well poured on, but it still works. Especially when he says, “I find I cannot help myself.” Which is a very near paraphrase of what Lestrade himself said three nights ago, when a bit of ice cream after dinner turned into a whole affair with homemade fudge sauce and whipped cream and caramel shards. Mycroft promises to behave more moderately in the future.

Lestrade puts the tickets on the bedside table, fixes the collar that never needs fixing. “I don’t trust promises made by the government. Cross-reference everything in my musical collection.” But he kisses Mycroft once, so the words don’t sting.

“Says the policeman.” Mycroft’s thumb strokes the apple of his cheek. “But you are a law unto yourself.” He grins a little.

Lestrade groans. “If I’d known you fell in for cheap puns—” Another kiss. “You’re lucky you’re a handsome devil.”

“Flattery—well.” Mycroft reaches, fastens his watch one-handed. It’s as close as he’s come to actually _accepting_ a compliment.

It would be very nice to stand here and fuss Mycroft to distraction, to touch the edge of his ear as though there’s a hair out of place, but they both should get on with the morning. And then he’ll have to take the girls shopping because they’ve brought nice clothing, tidy enough for the Evensong at St. Paul’s that they’d gone to on Wednesday, but nothing for sitting front row at the Symphony on a Saturday night. But they’ve been mooning over the thrift and vintage shops—both of them, which is little odd, though Corrie says the clothes here are better than at home, by some definition of “better” that he doesn’t quite get—and they’re both of sizes that children grow out of quickly. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

***

But nothing is ever as simple as he wants it to be. It starts in the morning, Mycroft already gone—the girls are disappointed to have missed him, but cheered that he’ll be back later. They don’t yet know what for, and when he slides the tickets across the table, he’s glad that Betsy’s teacup is already empty because she’s hand-flapping hard enough that he’s certain she’d choke if she tried to drink. Corrie actually goes running for the hall, slides on her pyjama-clad knees like she’s just scored a goal. Because, if he didn’t know, “They do the drumming _on_ the guitars.” Which, as he is informed, is awesome.

And then, just as soon as they’ve been thrilled, as he’s putting away the dishes from breakfast, Betsy’s standing at his elbow, and Corrie’s got her arms knotted around his waist. Corrie’s voice is sniffly, muted by his jumper, but he makes out enough: _don’t want to go home tomorrow._ And then Betsy’s got him around the ribs, and he’d hoped to avoid the meltdown over tomorrow until the actual day.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s all right.” He puts an arm around each of them. “I’ll see you at Gran and Pépé’s in June. After Lola’s wedding.” He is not invited to the actual wedding. In Lola’s book, he is still, according to Marisol, “the one who got away.” And for that reason, he is incredibly grateful to not have to go, though showing up with Mycroft on his arm would be sort of fantastic.

As if she’s reading his mind, Betsy looks up. “Will Mycroft come, too?”

Corrie takes his hand, puts it over her face. “Will he bring Anthea?” She speaks through the space between his fingers.

“I don’t know.” That answers both. Certainly Mycroft knows about the event—Lestrade’s mentioned it in passing, and he’s not naïve enough to think that an idle page-turn of his wall calendar means anything other than Mycroft committing everything written on it to memory in an instant. But he hasn’t asked him about it, hasn’t brought it up in any concrete way.

“He has to come,” Betsy says. “I’ll have my guitar then.” She’s playing before the ceremony.

“And he has to meet Gran.” Corrie’s peeks out from behind his hand, her face solemn.

There’s something suspicious about that, something that suggests his mother already knows about Mycroft. And then he feels immediately guilty that he hasn’t said anything about him to her or to his father yet. He wonders if Mycroft’s mother knows about him.

He clears his throat. “We’ll sort that all when we get closer to the date, yeah?” He spins them both toward the doorway. “Now tidy up, you lot. Places to go.”

***

Betsy finds a very pretty tea-length dress in the second shop they’re in, something almost shiny, an icy blue that makes her look very much like a young woman. Without making her look like someone off the telly. For which he is exceedingly grateful. The woman at the shop says it’s vintage fifties, and she’s put in a new zipper in the back, fixed the falling hem on the underskirt.

“I’m being robbed,” she says, and says something about not having been able to sell it because the dress had been tailored for someone else and it’s just a wonder that Betsy’s so built like a willow tree, but she’s smiling. Betsy twirls and the skirt blooms around her knees, diaphanous, and the sparkly glass brooch at the waist catches the light.

Corrie pokes at a rack, and the woman tugs out a green dress that looks about her size. Corrie takes it, disappears into the changing room, and she comes back in a few minutes, the dress back on its hanger. She just shakes her head. Betsy and the shopkeeper seem to take that as a challenge, disappearing into the crowded racks again. The metallic slide of hangers fills the room. Corrie tugs at his sleeve until he crouches beside her.

“Yeah?”

Corrie jams her hands into her coat pockets, her eyes fixed on a water-mark on the floor.

He scrunches one hand in her hair again. “What’s the matter, snitch?”

“I _hate_ dresses.” She scuffs one foot against the base of a rack. “Do I _have_ to?”

“Can’t go to the symphony in your football kit.” He replays this conversation almost monthly with Donovan about wearing a tie to particular circumstances. The phrase “Sherlock Holmes never has to wear a fucking tie” did once fall from his lips, and Sally has never given him such a look in his life.

“I _know_ ,” she says, and then she mutters about Ron Weasley’s formal robes being better than a stupid skirt. And her gaze slides up to a navy suit in the window. She glances toward him.

“We could put six of you in that.” It’s a man’s suit, not far off from his own size. Across the shop, he can see Betsy pulling piece after piece from the rack, shaking her head, putting it back.

Corrie sighs hard, drops her head, flops down to sit, right there on the floor. He stands, glances down at her, the crown of her head, and he stretches up, tries to see around the tree of very strange hats to the little stand in the corner.

“Come on.” He tugs her up by the hands. “We’re going over here.”

When “over here” turns out to be the smallish rack of boys’ clothes, Corrie lights up.

The shopkeeper sees them, and she says, “Oh, no, that’s not—” but she stops at the warning look on his face. He sees her draw in a deep breath, put a very frilly lilac thing back on the rack, and say, “The other side will be closer to your size.” The phone rings, and she goes to answer it, and she doesn’t come back.

Which is likely just as well. Betsy’s got it covered, anyway, seems almost embarrassed that she didn’t suggest it first.

“You need a tie,” she says to Corrie, and she starts pawing through a small basket of them, mostly clip-on, mostly in colours no one wants.

“I’m not wearing a tie,” he says, looking at both of them. The aubergine shirt is going to be bad enough.

Betsy shakes her head. “But ties are cool.”

“Bowties are cooler.” Corrie tugs a navy jacket from its hanger, and the sleeves stop halfway to her elbows. She puts it back. “You’re as bad as Da,” she says at him. Corrie shakes her head, too.

Betsy slides hangers, finds a dark grey herringbone, and holds it up to Corrie’s back. “Try this,” she says, and then she casts a glance at him while she returns to the basket of ties, one-handed. “Mycroft will wear a tie.”

He ticks through the folded white button-downs. “Mycroft would wear a tie to sleep if he wouldn’t accidentally choke himself.” He’s not exaggerating as much as he thinks he should be.

“But he looks so nice.” Betsy takes the suit and the shirt he’s looking at and a fistful of ties and muscles Corrie into the curtained dressing room.

Mycroft _does_ look nice. All of the time. He dashes off a quick text to the very man, saying that very thing, while there’s the sound of scuffling in the dressing room, Corrie hissing, Betsy saying _hold still, you’ll pop the buttons._

“Oi,” he says. “Do I have to issue yellow cards?”

“No,” they both say at the same time. And then the curtain comes back, and there’s Corrie, looking rather pleased with the suit, though it’s a bit long in the trousers. The tie—the best of the lot—is a striped blue and red thing—and she tugs at that.

“Clip-ons are rubbish.” She bares her teeth at it.

He tries to hold back the laugh. The bad thing is that he can’t exactly loan her one of his own—there’s no way to shorten it enough without just cutting it in half.

“D’you like tartan, dear?” The shopkeeper has reappeared, holding out a long strip of evergreen and purple heather plaid. Corrie snatches it from her hand so quickly the woman looks shocked. Corrie swoops it around her neck and then stares at the ends in her hands. She looks at him for help, and he can only shrug. He has, thankfully, never had to wear a bowtie in his life, other than the pre-sewn adjustable ones that come with hired tuxedos.

“Here.” The woman bends down, ties the bowtie neatly. Lestrade is going to bank on Mycroft being able to do that because there’s no way he’s going to remember. “That actually looks precious on you,” she says, turning down the collar neatly, checking the fall of the cuff against Corrie’s wrists.

Lestrade’s glad she’s looking at the fit of the sleeves and not at the eyeroll Corrie makes, but then Corrie turns to the mirror again, her grin widening. “Yeah,” she says. “Bowties are _cool_.”

“I’m glad it found a wearer,” the woman says. “I think it was hand-made, and the fabric’s so pretty, but none of the boys who’ve been in would wear it for the purple.”

“That’s stupid.” Corrie buttons up the jacket, shrugs her thin shoulders like a mobster.

Betsy puts back the ties she’d had. “His boyfriend’s favourite color is purple,” she says, matter-of-factly.

The shopkeeper’s face forcibly smoothes. “Oh,” she says. “That’s nice.” Whatever she might say next gets lost in Corrie tugging at the bowtie so she can change back into her regular clothes so they can go back to the Museum.

They’re walking out of the store, and he glances at Betsy. “Purple?” He doesn’t actually doubt her, just— “I thought his favorite color is green.” A third of Mycroft’s stuff is green, or trimmed in green.

“He _likes_ green,” Betsy says. “You could get him something green and he would like it.” The tilt of her head says _if you’re okay with second-best, anyway_.

“But just like that lady said.” Corrie peeks into the bag she’s carrying again. She won’t let him carry it, though he’s got Betsy’s. “People don’t let boys like purple. Which is frankly _appalling_.” Another phrase she’s picked up. She could have gotten that one from Mycroft, Sherlock, or John.

“And it was probably worse when he was little.” Betsy curls her arm around his, gives it a little squeeze. “But it’s the books. And that tea set at his flat.”

The purple books. Mycroft’s favourites. It would be daft to get something handmade in what’s only second-favourite. He remembers the tea set being green, but now that he thinks about it, it had the dark leaf-design, the purple interiors to the cups. And Tottenham’s darkest shade is pretty well purple. There’s something strangely satisfying about this piece of information.

“So,” Betsy says, stepping around a puddle, “you _have_ to wear the shirt.”

“ _Obvisly_.” Corrie grins up at him.

***

They stop off at his flat, too, so he can get his suit, and when they walk in, he is pleasantly, unexpectedly surprised. The plastic is gone, the bulging hallway ceiling is flat and even and freshly painted. There is, however, a thin film of plaster dust under the sofa, and the countertops still feel a bit gritty. All told, it’s better than he thought it would be, and there’s a letter from Mr. Bhana cutting a quarter from next month’s rent because he couldn’t stay in his own flat for a week.

They’re due to meet Mycroft in about an hour, which is just enough time, then, to get themselves ready to go. He shaves, then does his hair under Betsy’s supervision, and after two small adjustments that he cannot actually distinguish as any different than what he usually does, it somehow looks better.

“What was that?”

“Magic.”

And then Corrie is there, standing atop the toilet lid, insisting he make her hair like his, though she accepts Betsy’s minor revisions, too. She puts one of Betsy’s little silver knot earrings in her right earlobe, offers him the other one. He swaps his regular earring for it. They all scrunch in front of the mirror, and he whistles.

“We _are_ some pretty people,” he says. Wearing it, now, the aubergine shirt doesn’t seem so bad, and it fits better than it used to. Likely because being with Mycroft means he’s been eating a little more sensibly, and he hasn’t got the free time to sit at the pub for football, generally. Corrie grins, though she is still clutching her untied bowtie, and Betsy rolls her eyes, shoves him a little.

Then Corrie’s dragging them both out. Because it’s time to _go_.

Jerome is the one who opens the door for them, makes a neat half-bow as he holds it open. Betsy clutches at Lestrade’s arm, her cheeks colouring faintly.

“Aren’t we smart-looking tonight?” He smiles at the girls, and Corrie puts up a fist, bumps knuckles with him, and she beams when Jerome pulls his hand back, splays his fingers properly. She’s been trying to educate Lestrade on proper technique for “blowing it up,” but it doesn’t stick. To him, Jerome says, “Mr. Holmes should be returning momentarily.”

When Lestrade gets to the top of the stairs, he realizes he still has the key Mycroft lent him last week. That feels strange for a moment, but maybe good, too. He’d house-sat for a boyfriend for a week once, looking after his dog, but the boyfriend wasn’t there during that time, and he’d given the key back as soon as he’d come home. Whatever it is, the girls don’t give him any time to think about it. Betsy goes straight for the kettle because everyone likes a cup of tea—or coffee, and she makes a face—after work. Corrie puts her bowtie carefully on the edge of the table—so no one can forget—and puts out the cups.

She looks point-blank at him. “Will you have some?”

He sighs, defeated. “All right, then.”

They grin, and Betsy measures tea, and they settle back in the den to wait. It’s a little longer than he expects it to be, long enough that they find an old episode of _Top Gear_ and he only hopes that the day’s facts about The Stig aren’t too racy. Finally, there’s the door, and where he expects the girls to go dashing for the front room, they don’t. Corrie’s actually pretty wrapped up in the race across the mud flats, has been rooting for Hammond’s little car like it’s alive, and Betsy just elbows him once, holding down a grin.

Corrie outright shoves him without looking away from the telly. “Go kiss him hello.”

Who’s he to argue?

He finds Mycroft hanging his coat, and he flicks the switch on the electric kettle before he comes in closer. “I have been sent to kiss you.”

Mycroft glances up. “Direct orders?” His voice is light, but his eyes rake, and Lestrade’s more than a little pleased about that.

“Most direct.” He tugs Mycroft into the lee of the kitchen, so that if the girls do come into the hallway, they aren’t subject to the kissing. As soon, too, as they’re hidden by the wall, Mycroft licks into his mouth, curls his arm around Lestrade’s waist under his jacket. Again, they forcibly separate when the electric kettle clicks off, and Lestrade pours water into the teapot, starts the steeping.

And Mycroft looks grateful for that, even as he touches the undone button at Lestrade’s throat, and then his finger drifts to the side, where the mark is hidden, just a moment, before he draws back, composes himself.

“You look wonderful,” Mycroft says. And he is looking from the dark shirtfront to Lestrade’s eyes. Of course he’s made the connection.

Lestrade allows himself a grin. “Glad you like.” He takes out the milk, and finally he hears movement in the hallway.

Betsy turns the corner in her organza dress, and God bless her, Corrie struts, her hair spiked, and they’re both trying to play it cool. Betsy gathers up the teapot, and Mycroft doesn’t miss the fact that she pours four cups.

Mycroft thanks her for the tea as the girls sit. “Well,” he says. “I had better get myself together if I’m to keep up with you all.” He sips his tea, as though his light tweed isn’t the finest bit of tailoring in the room. “Ferdinand did warn me.”

“You mean Jerome,” Corrie says—corrects—and Mycroft raises an eyebrow at her. Corrie makes a fist, holds it up, blows it up. Mycroft looks at Lestrade.

He shrugs. “Clearly, he’s defected to her side.” He picks up his teacup, contemplates it. It’s going to taste of…tea. He grimaces. They all ignore him.

“Sweet,” Corrie says. “Can we take Jerome home with us?”

“Yes, please.” Betsy’s cheeks flush again. Corrie cackles at her, then wonders out loud if Jerome knows _Rio_ Ferdinand.

Lestrade puts his cup down without drinking. He’s going to pretend he didn’t hear that.

Mycroft pats his hand. “Drink your tea.” He finishes his cup, stands, and as he’s walking past to change, his fingertips slide across the back of Lestrade’s neck.

And despite the girls trying to traumatize him (and each other) with teasing, they manage to survive until Mycroft reappears, in the dark suit he’d worn on what Lestrade now thinks of as their first date, to karaoke, and he’s accessorized with a pearl grey tie shot through with the same purple as Lestrade’s shirt.

“How many ties do you have?” Not that Lestrade’s complaining, but though he’s seen a few of the suits more than once, he’s never seen any of his ties more than once.

Mycroft settles his cuffs, and Corrie stares at his cufflinks. Mycroft glances at him. “How many copies of _London Calling_ do you own?”

Lestrade almost argues that they’re not all the same, thank you, that four are vinyl and two are alternate covers and—but he closes his mouth as Corrie approaches.

She holds her bowtie up to Mycroft. “Can you tie this for me?”

He seems surprised. “Me?”

Corrie nods. “You know how to do all of the things he doesn’t.” She glances at him, as though in apology, but Lestrade can’t keep the grin off his face.

Mycroft pulls out one of the dining room chairs, holds out his hand for Corrie to climb up. She ignores his hand, clambers up, stands there, her head still not quite level with his. Even when she stretches onto her tip-toes, she falls short.

Mycroft folds and crosses and loops, and Corrie’s beaming at herself in the reflection of a picture frame. “But Gregory,” he says, “knows how to do all of the things that I do not.”

“Except dancing,” Lestrade says. He is, knows himself to be, completely pants at it. And he can’t imagine Mycroft unwinding enough to be so much in someone else’s personal space.

Mycroft gives him one very arch look. “Let’s not make assumptions, shall we?”

“You know what they say about assumptions,” Betsy says, grinning. Lestrade lets her pick on him for that for a while because if he doesn’t, he’s stuck thinking about Mycroft dancing—and it’s too much, he can’t—waltzing, waltzing is safe. That’s probably what he means, anyway. Stuffy, official-function-type dancing.

Thankfully, Mycroft nudges them all toward the door—and he doesn’t even attempt to demur when Lestrade hands him the hat.

When they pass Anthea’s closed door, Corrie pauses, looks at it for a moment. “Is she here?’ she asks him, glancing past to Mycroft, too.

He can only shrug, and Mycroft says he may have actually convinced her to take the evening off.

“Oh,” Corrie says, and her head droops. She goes on down the stairs to join Betsy in looking out to the sidewalk. There’s no sign of Jerome or the car.

Mycroft’s left hand shifts in his jacket pocket, and in a twinkling, there is Anthea on the landing.

“Yes, sir?” she says.

“I just wanted to remind you that the evening is yours.”

“As you’ve said.” There’s a hint of a grin at her lips as she passes them, steps up to the window with the girls. “You’ll keep them in line, I trust?” She throws a conspiratorial glance over one shoulder, and both Betsy and Corrie nod dutifully.

“Thank you.” Anthea stands with them until the car does arrive, and she gives Jerome a wary eye as he holds the door. He seems used to that, though, and then they’re all settled into the car, Corrie insisting on “shotgun” when Mycroft attempts to insist that the girls take the back. Betsy calls the front for the way home.

Lestrade just enjoys the ride, even though he’s stuck sitting in the middle, so Betsy can see out through the dark-tinted window, so she and Corrie can jointly salute the statue of Admiral Nelson as they pass Trafalgar Square.

***

Coming out of the theatre, Betsy has her arm curled through Mycroft’s, is squeezing it tight, and her chest is heaving like she’s been running.

“That was,” she says, “ _amazing_.” She looks up. “Thank you.”

Mycroft looks very nearly startled. “You are most welcome,” he says. “Though I should be thanking your Uncle Gregory for introducing me to such wonderful company. I am glad you enjoyed it.” _Enjoyed_ is the understatement of the year. Lestrade isn’t certain that Corrie moved a muscle during either half of the show, though they all took a bit of a ramble at the intermission so the girls could let out a bit of the pent-up rapture. Lestrade glances at Betsy and Corrie, and Corrie’s grin is sheer cheek and smugness.

“Stop that,” Lestrade says to Mycroft. “They don’t need their heads swollen more.” Not-so-secretly, he’s not certain if he’s ever been this happy.

Corrie says, “Yeah, Mycroft’s definitely the smartest person I’ve ever met,” as though Lestrade hasn’t said anything. She’s walking between them, her hands in her trouser pockets like his.

***

None of them really sleep, not properly. Though Corrie dozes off on the drive back to Mycroft’s house, she is wide awake by the time they pull into the drive. There are almost tears while he supervises the re-packing of their suitcases, but only almost. And then it’s nearly midnight, and he can’t bring himself to insist the girls go to bed. They’ll be stuck on a plane for six hours tomorrow, and they’ll be jet-lagged regardless. So the den it is, and they can laugh at the idiocy of Bertie Wooster and the indefatigable Jeeves. It’s after two when he notices that Corrie’s asleep sitting up against the base of the sofa, her arms around Mycroft’s shin, her head pillowed on his knee. And Mycroft’s looking at her, isn’t watching the end of the episode.

“I’ll put her to bed,” he whispers.

Mycroft shakes his head. “It’s all right.”

They all stay there until morning. Anthea drives them to the airport, and both she and Mycroft pretend not to notice if his eyes are a little wrecked when she circles back to pick them up at Departures. Though he knows he has to, knows, especially, that he’s got to let Mycroft have his normal schedule back, it’s harder than it should be to get out at his own flat.

***

It’s been four days since the girls have gone, and it’s been four days he’s all but lived in his office, trying to catch up. He hasn’t come back to any disasters, which is good, but there’s always paperwork, things that hadn’t gotten finished before he left because of that necklace business, and string of vandalism cases (two flats, three shops, all hit in one week, altogether too near Angelo’s for his liking). Dimmock’s notes want to treat them as related. Easier and harder, all at once.

The office is quiet, the streets outside slowing a bit under the late-night glow of streetlights, and when his phone rings, he answers without taking his eyes from his computer screen.

“DI Lestrade.” On the other end, a pause, a particular exhale. He braces himself. He’s been expecting this.

“Gregory,” his father says. “Your mother wants to know why you do this to her.”

He turns his chair away from the screen, looks balefully at his empty mug. “I’ve been busy.” That’s not a lie. The whole week is going to be like this, at least.

“Maybe so.” In that much, Jean Lestrade has always been sympathetic. “But too busy to even mention this new someone you have?”

He winces. The worst part is that he feels guilty about it; he knows it’s been long enough that he should have said something, and, with Mycroft—he’s wanted to say something. But it felt like wanting to say it too much.

There’s the sound of another line picking up. He thinks he’d rather hear someone chambering a round just now.

And then his mother’s voice. “When did you move in with him?”

“I haven’t moved in with anyone.” The thought flickers a moment: what would it be like, to be in the same place, permanently, with someone? Mycroft hasn’t asked for the key back, and the time he put it in Mycroft’s coat pocket, he’d found it back on his own ring within the hour. But he hasn’t lived with anyone in twenty years, and then it was with family—he’s not thinking about that now.

“So you just take my grandchildren to stay with any old bloke?”

He knows that she doesn’t mean that the way it sounds. She knows him better than that. But there is, too, the fact that, to his parents, Mycroft _could_ be any old bloke. He closes his eyes. “My flat was flooded. Mycroft—”

“You _are_ capable of saying his name.” His mother’s voice is triumphant.

Lestrade can hear his father’s dry chuckle on the other line. It’s not bloody fair.

“Were you ever going to tell us,” his father says, “about your Tory boyfriend?”

“He’s not a Tory.” Lestrade is fairly certain. Mycroft is a Holmes, which is to say above the very concept of political parties. Political parties are inefficient, dull, predictable, and Mycroft has also called party politics gauche. _Simple._ Immaterial to the larger picture. In the background, his father mutters that anyone with a country house and a name like that has to be a Tory.

“Then what—who—is he? All we have are a few e-mails from the girls—Robert won’t say anything, is worse than you are—and they make this Mycroft person sound like the lovechild of James Bond and Bertie Wooster’s butler and Betsy says he drives an Aston and Corrie says he has an assistant who looks like what would happen—and I quote—‘if models were ninjas’ and they both said he’s the brother of that lunatic consultant of yours.” Jeanne Lestrade draws a single deep breath. “So if you could sort out the tall tales from all that, Gregory Émile, your father and I would appreciate it.”

Lestrade puts his elbow on his desk, props his chin in his hand. “That’s the thing,” he says. “Every word of that is true. Mycroft is extraordinary. I don’t know that I could even explain how much.” And both of his parents are quiet for a long while.

***

The only good thing about Mycroft being gone on one of his many trips is that it lets him catch up on work and things he’s been wanting to take care of, appointments and the like. He does a full clean on his oven, helps Corrie with a social studies project, Skype-jams with Betsy a little, schedules a dentist appointment, calls his GP.

Nine days later, when he and Mycroft are walking through Regent’s Park, he cues up the all-clear voicemail message from the surgery about the STI screening. “It’s for you,” he says to Mycroft and hands him the phone. Mycroft looks startled, then momentarily puzzled as he holds the mobile to his ear, then he says _oh_.

“Thank you,” he says, and there’s a little more colour in his cheeks than before. He gives the phone back. They walk on a few more yards, and then Mycroft squeezes his hand even as he’s texting left-handed.

***

Again, Lestrade wakes and he’s alone in Mycroft’s bed. The light is only starting to grey against the windows, and the whole flat seems still, not even the shower running. He rolls over, slides his hand between the sheets, and Mycroft’s side of the bed isn’t warm anymore, but it’s also not cold. So he hasn’t been gone very long. And he usually hears Mycroft’s mobile when it rings in the middle of the night. The last time, he got up with him, made him some tea and held Mycroft’s feet in his lap while he spoke with someone in Mandarin. Could be another crisis somewhere.

He slides out of bed, pulls on his robe, and pads out to the kitchen. It’s quiet there, too, and so’s the den. He can’t imagine that Mycroft would completely leave without saying anything, but when he goes back to the bedroom, there’s not even a text on his phone.

He’s standing next to the bed, puzzled, when he hears a slight sound of movement from behind the other door in Mycroft’s bedroom. It’s standing just barely ajar, and he finds himself sneaking toward it for reasons he’s not quite clear on. Maybe because everything is so silent.

The inch-wide opening shows him exactly where Mycroft is, and now that he’s found him, he can barely put it all together. The air at the door is hot, a small space heater visible in the corner, and Mycroft’s forehead and arms are covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He can _see_ Mycroft’s arms, bared by a sleeveless black shirt, and he’s wearing matching jogging bottoms, and he’s holding himself up in a plank position before he shifts, turns, stretches his left arm skyward, opens his body until he’s held by one arm, the long line of his back facing Lestrade. When he comes back to center, Lestrade steps back, so Mycroft won’t see him when he’s turned toward the door. It gives him, too, a moment to gather himself; he’s never gone in for the yoga business before, even though everyone and their mother have said it’s brilliant. Sally says it’s literally the only thing that keeps her from slapping certain people some days. And Mycroft’s apparently into it, and sweet Christ, _that’s_ exquisite. He glances around the door again, and Mycroft’s bent into the one Lestrade knows is called downward-facing dog, his back to the door again. His arse and long legs toward the door. Lestrade bites his lip. He should move, he shouldn’t watch. If Mycroft wanted him to see this, he’d do it later in the day, would make some noise. Would show this off. As it is, the room’s only lit by the very dim light of pre-dawn and a small paper lantern that looks like it actually contains a real candle. He can make out a lamp in one corner, dark and unused. And a mirror, what looks like a crumpled sheet on the floor beside it.

Then Mycroft moves again, and Lestrade doesn’t care at all about what else is in the room. He walks his hands back until he’s bent double, his palms pressed to the floor for a while, and then he straightens, slowly, balances carefully on one foot, twines his forearms so the backs of his hands are touching. His right knee comes over his left, right foot curled around his left calf, and he bends his knee, holds in a half-crouch. It makes Lestrade’s thighs burn just looking at him, and Mycroft shakes a little, has to touch the wall, re-balance. But he does rebalance, and he repeats the pose on the other leg. Lestrade wishes he could see Mycroft’s face during this.

He’s not certain how long he stands there, rapt, watching the play of muscle under Mycroft’s skin, his clothes. Put under strain like this, there are lean cords in his forearms, supple lines of limbs. Lestrade wants him, desperately. The hardest thing he’s done in a very long time is stay here, not interrupt, and though he’s not sure why, there’s something like pride in his chest watching him. Mycroft isn’t perfect at this: he trembles, he loses his balance from time to time, and once, doing something that sees Mycroft attempt to support himself on his hands, tuck his knees in against his upper arms so that all of his weight is on just his hands, he tips forward, almost lands on his face. He catches himself, shakes his head, breathes hard. And he tries it again. It doesn’t work this time, either, but the failure’s more controlled.

Eventually, Mycroft folds himself cross-legged, the tops of his feet resting atop his thighs. And he is still, his hands cupped in his lap. Lestrade eases himself away from the door, and the correct thing to do, he thinks, is to get back in bed, pretend to still be asleep, let Mycroft have his ruse. But there’s no way he can pretend that he hasn’t seen that. He does put himself back in bed, though, and he waits.

Mycroft slips back into the room, still so quiet, save his breath, which is a little ragged. He stands beside the window a moment, wipes his cheek with the small towel in his hand. When he turns, he sees, immediately, that Lestrade is awake, is looking at him. The room is bright enough now that Lestrade can see the darker ring of fabric around his neck, the way his hair is stuck to his forehead.

“Gregory,” he says, and his voice is uncertain. Not exactly surprised, but wary.

Lestrade licks his lips, and Mycroft seems surprised at that. “Will you come back to bed?”

Mycroft holds his towel against his neck. “Yes,” he says, crossing toward the door to the hallway. “I’ll shower and—”

“You don’t have to.” Lestrade doesn’t mean to interrupt, but that had to be said before he left the room. This, too: “I would like it, actually, if you didn’t.” He wants him like this, just like this.

It’s enough to make Mycroft stop walking, at least. And it may be the most puzzled look he’s seen on Mycroft. “Gregory, I’m well past glistening with effort.” He inches a little closer to the door, takes his dressing gown from its hook.

Lestrade slides down to the foot of the bed, careful to keep the sheet over his lap; now might not be the best time to reveal that he’s not wearing anything at all anymore. But. “You’re a sweaty mess and you’re gorgeous.” He holds out his hands, beckons. “Come here. Please.”

That much, Mycroft will give him, it seems, though he steps forward slowly, as though he’s waiting for Lestrade to change his mind. Which isn’t going to happen.

Lestrade tosses his robe across the foot of the bed, takes Mycroft’s hand, turns it, licks along the inside of his wrist, where Lestrade can still feel the quickness of his pulse, the tightness of the tendons there. Mycroft draws in a sharp breath, and the towel in his other hand falls, Mycroft’s palm landing on his shoulder. Lestrade kisses his way up the inside of Mycroft’s forearm, drawing him in until Mycroft’s standing between his spread knees, until he’s close enough for Lestrade to curl his arm around Mycroft’s hips, to feel that there’s no second layer of cloth under his jogging bottoms.

“May I undress you?” It is incredibly difficult to make that a question, and he tips his head up, looks at Mycroft, who looks wholly startled by it.

“I’m not—” Mycroft swallows. “Surely you would rather—” But he doesn’t finish, one of the extraordinarily few times that that’s happened in Lestrade’s memory. He doesn’t finish because Lestrade is drawing him closer, is pressing his face against the damp cloth over Mycroft’s stomach, his chin only inches from his swelling prick. Mycroft’s hand slides hesitantly into his hair. He looks up again.

“You are.” It doesn’t matter what it was that Mycroft left unsaid. “And I want you.” So very much. “That was the most—God—you don’t know how—” He slides his fingers up over Mycroft’s arms, the muscles there still taut with the exertion, with nervousness, maybe. “Please,” he says again. “Let me see you.”

There is Mycroft’s breath, the working of his throat. His stepping back even as he nods, the smallest dip of his chin. “All right,” he says, as Lestrade inches even closer to the edge of the bed. Mycroft looks down, must see how the sheet bares the top of one thigh where usually there’s the leg of his pants, and Lestrade stays still under his gaze for a moment, lets Mycroft look. Lets Mycroft understand that he’s bare, too.

Mycroft knots his fingers in the hem of his shirt, and he holds there, hesitates. “Gregory.”

Lestrade cups his hands over Mycroft’s, strokes softly with his thumbs. “It’s all right.”

The expression on Mycroft’s face is caught between fear and longing, but Mycroft peels the shirt up over his head, and even that much is new, somehow exquisite, the gesture, the unveiling of his pale torso.

And for the first time, Lestrade sees Mycroft’s stomach, his ribs, his surgery scar, his navel, and he has to catch Mycroft’s hands, keep him from covering himself. He puts Mycroft’s hands on his own shoulders as he tugs him in again, puts his hands on Mycroft’s sides. He has never felt anything like this. From his illness, from losing so much weight so quickly, the skin around Mycroft’s middle is a little loose, slack; the thing Lestrade wants most to do is knead with both hands, to flex his fingertips against the texture. The feeling is soft and supple and it makes him want to bite, but he doesn’t.

Mycroft swallows, his grip tight. “It’s better,” he says, “than it was.” When Lestrade glances up, Mycroft’s eyes are trained on the far wall.

“It’s lovely.” Not what he’d expected, new, a little strange, but this is Mycroft, who has not been what he’d expected from the very beginning. Lestrade kisses the base of Mycroft’s sternum, and then he can’t help himself: he drags his nose, his lips, his chin across the plane of his stomach, mouthing kisses and stroking from spine to hip. “ _You’re_ lovely.” When he sucks gently, presses his lips together at the left side of his waist, feels the yielding fold, Mycroft startles, a slight tremor that runs through all of him, that might be a response to it nearly tickling, or it’s true surprise. Either of these are fine—Lestrade finds he doesn’t care. Right now, all he can think of is Mycroft’s body finally bare under his hands, his mouth, the sweat-salt taste. The building strength in him, the way Lestrade can feel the thin bands of muscle under the velvet skin. The evidence of Mycroft having to _try_. It’s intoxicating, mesmerizing. He licks, nuzzles in close, and Mycroft clutches his shoulders. One foot inches left, widens the way he stands, and Lestrade does not miss the wanting tilt of his hips, the way his prick shifts in his trousers. He hooks his fingertips into Mycroft’s waistband, looks up.

“Finish the job?” Lestrade’s hands drift to the drawstring tie, the outline of his prick just there.

Mycroft nods, shakily, lets him do as asked, lets Lestrade undress him, and the black fabric skims down. The firmness of his calves Lestrade is familiar with but he drags his hands over them when the cloth is gone, anyway, works his way back up Mycroft’s legs. Unless he’s in a car or indulging Lestrade by working on the sofa so they can touch even when he’s busy, Mycroft stands to work. When he has a situation to chew over, he paces. Not frantically, but monastically. Long, oblong circuits of his office (or Lestrade’s front room and kitchen), voice silent, hands clasped behind his back, spine straight.

He is not standing straight now, is leaning into Lestrade’s space, stooped a little to hold fast to his shoulders, and he draws in a sharp breath when Lestrade starts to kiss his way up the outside of one thigh. It’s difficult not simply burying his face in Mycroft’s groin, not staring at his prick now finally uncovered. But this is, again, not necessarily about sex. The way Mycroft clutches at him, though, Lestrade thinks he can add “yet” to the thought. Not about sex _yet_. At the crest of his hip, Lestrade stops, looks up.

“Come to bed with me.” He licks his lips, and Mycroft is looking at his mouth in exactly the way Lestrade had hoped he would.

Mycroft steps around him, quickly, slips into bed, tugs the sheet up and over them, and maybe he’s chilled, and maybe he’s covering himself, but what matters is the way Mycroft presses close, all at once, his prick full and heavy against Lestrade’s thigh.

The best part is the sound he makes, not quite voiced, when they are all bare skin, all together. Mycroft hooks his leg around Lestrade’s, and he just clings for a while, sliding his arm over Lestrade’s back, petting along his spine, his touch slowing, stopping before he quite touches Lestrade’s arse. Lestrade does the same, presses his nose against the side of Mycroft’s neck to enjoy the slightly feral scent of his sweat. That’s new, and it’s good, almost as good as Mycroft’s hand finally slipping down over his arse because then he feels vindicated in doing the same, and there’s more evidence of how hard he’s been working. This time he lets his fingers flex, squeezes, and Mycroft shifts against him, kisses him hard.

And Mycroft doesn’t stop him when he rolls Mycroft onto his back, only tips his chin up to accept more kisses on his neck, across his collarbone. He looks strangely at Lestrade, though, his expression almost cross, almost a pout, when Lestrade takes Mycroft’s hands, removes them from his body. He presses Mycroft’s wrists above his head, holds them a moment. Mycroft’s eyes are wide in the golding morning light.

“Just for a minute.” He traces Mycroft’s lower lip with his tongue. “I want to look.” And with his arms held like this, the white undersides of his arms show, the biceps and triceps displayed. Lestrade licks, and the skin tightens as Mycroft shivers again, his hands balling into fists.

“That tickles,” he says. “And looking is with the eyes.” He curls his leg around Lestrade’s again, though.

“Narrow interpretation.” There is a dark freckle high on one bicep, and he sucks over it, licks, and Mycroft squirms a little, makes a frustrated sound. It’s a gorgeous noise, and maybe he can see just how much of that he can wring out of Mycroft some other time, but now he inches back, and Mycroft’s hands come immediately back to his shoulders, like he’s afraid to let go. Lestrade uses that as an excuse to inch down his body, leaving kisses as he goes.

When he gets to the bottom of Mycroft’s ribs, he pulls back, sits up, and he does look, with his eyes, at Mycroft’s prick. Where the hair on Mycroft’s head is only properly gingery in the right light and even then tends a little more toward brown, the nest of curls at his groin is brighter, coppery, and Lestrade can’t help the wanting sound in his throat.

“What?”

“Always wanted to have a ginger boyfriend.” He’s never going to admit it, but he’d sort of been hoping this was the case. He hadn’t been certain because Mycroft hasn’t got any chest hair to speak of, says he shaves the dozen he has.

Mycroft laughs a little, touches his cheek. “You’re ridiculous.” He’s blushing, the colour reaching all the way down his neck now.

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just lucky.” He expects Mycroft’s going to change his mind in favour of his ridiculousness in a minute. When he mouths kisses against Mycroft’s hipbones, Mycroft’s breath shakes, and his prick twitches. His gorgeous prick. He inches closer, until the coarse springiness of Mycroft’s pubic hair is against his chin, and he breathes, taking in the heady scent of him, before sliding his cheek along Mycroft’s shaft, before turning his head and doing it again, before pressing his lips once to the head.

Mycroft’s fingertips clutch at the sheets. “Are you really—” His mouth closes, his throat working.

Lestrade tries to keep himself from laughing. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, please.” His voice is quiet, rasped.

He licks the length of Mycroft’s prick, over his foreskin, teases under the edge of it with the tip of his tongue, and Mycroft clutches at his forearms where he’s braced against the mattress. He lets go again, and Lestrade pulls back enough to speak.

“You can get as grabby as you like,” he says, and he uses the pause to rearrange them, to nudge Mycroft’s legs far enough apart to kneel between them. “I promise I don’t mind.” And he leans down, takes Mycroft’s whole prick in his mouth, pressing down carefully so he doesn’t gag. To his satisfaction, Mycroft’s hands go tight on his forearms again, and he moans softly.

Drawing back slowly, he licks, and when he pushes back down, he slides Mycroft’s foreskin back, tongues softly at the head before he lets go completely to lave his balls, to feel the heavy roundness, the fullness in his mouth.

Mycroft makes a broken sound, and he covers his eyes with one arm. Lestrade glances up, and the movement only serves to stretch his chest, to invite the slide of Lestrade’s hand from shoulder to hip. He pets, though he has to do it under the sheet, where Mycroft’s worked the edge of it around and across himself again. Still, he drags his nose, the tip of his tongue over his scrotum, even as his fingertips skim Mycroft’s skin, and Mycroft’s whole body trembles, his legs curling around Lestrade’s back.

One hand lights on his shoulder, and there’s the slightest bit of pressure; yes, it isn’t fair to tease too much during a man’s first blow. Lestrade grins as the line between intellectual understanding of that thought and the actuality of it come crashing together all at once—Lestrade hasn’t been anyone’s first in two decades. He cups Mycroft’s bollocks in his hand, strokes the patch of skin behind while he hollows his cheeks and sucks him deep. Mycroft’s hips rock up, and Lestrade moans around the slide of his prick on his tongue.

“Gregory—” Mycroft gasps, and he’s tugging at Lestrade’s shoulder, a frantic push-pull, and Lestrade feels his balls tightening in his palm. He’s close, Mycroft’s close, and they’re both clean, they’re exclusive, and Lestrade isn’t going to back away. What he does do is hum encouragingly, glance up as best he can in this position, and Mycroft’s watching him, mouth open, chest heaving.

Lestrade inches back enough to swirl his tongue obscenely around the head of Mycroft’s prick before pushing down again. The bitter salt of Mycroft’s spend fills his mouth, and he swallows, stays where he is until Mycroft softens against his tongue. He rests his forehead against Mycroft’s hip, pets his side until Mycroft tugs him up to the pillow beside him.

Mycroft’s eyes are hooded, his breath still uneven. Lestrade is certain he’s never seen anything so beautiful.

“I,” Mycroft says, “would like to kiss you.” He seems uncertain about it. Would like to—might not _want_ to, given the circumstances.

Lestrade licks his lips. “You don’t have to.” Much as he’d personally enjoy it, it’s not like he’s feeling under-appreciated, and it is Mycroft’s first time. He doesn’t _have_ to do anything. But—“I can go brush my teeth.”

Mycroft takes his hand. “No,” he says. “I simply wasn’t certain—if it was acceptable.” Mycroft’s gaze on his mouth again. “And I confess I’m curious.” More of a blush.

“Come on, then.” He tugs Mycroft on top of him, and this time, too, Mycroft doesn’t try to reverse their positions, which he often does. Mycroft just kisses him deeply, apparently not put off by the taste, though Lestrade can _feel_ him considering it, the way Mycroft’s tongue slides slowly against his.

Mycroft kisses down his neck, doesn’t stop, like he’s determined, and Lestrade thinks that he could tell Mycroft he doesn’t have to reciprocate, but he hasn’t got willpower like that. He barely has the willpower to keep from hauling him back up and snogging him stupid every time Mycroft’s eyes lift toward his; it’s hard to keep from wanting to do everything all at once. Particularly when Mycroft’s left hand slides up his thigh, pushes his legs apart. If Mycroft is tentative about showing off his own body, he is not so tentative about displaying Lestrade to his liking, and Lestrade has to bite his lip before Mycroft’s even touched his prick.

When he does, too, his fingertips are warm, warmer than Mycroft’s hands usually are, as they wrap around his shaft, slip over his balls. His mouth follows, and he brushes his lips against Lestrade’s skin, draws the head of his prick over his cheekbones, all the way to the softer skin beneath his eyes, even against his temples. Lestrade’s never felt anything like this, and he knows that Mycroft is doing more than simply feeling now, but it reduces in his own chest to pure desire.

He has to close his eyes for a moment, and they’re opened again by the wet heat of Mycroft’s mouth, closing around him. He moans, and Mycroft’s right hand twines with Lestrade’s left as his other hand strokes behind his knee. It feels ticklish and open and fragile, having his hand there—where he’s not certain any of his previous partners have paid much attention—and Mycroft doesn’t move it as he sucks.

He’s grateful for the occasional inexpert blunt of Mycroft’s teeth against his prick, pushing him back from the edge of climax; he doesn’t want this to end. Mycroft’s fingertips tease the thin skin at the back of his leg, though, and breathless laughter turns to Mycroft’s name, drawn out over his tongue, pulling the air from his lungs.

At the sound, Mycroft’s hands tighten, and he edges deeper, and Lestrade wants to tell him it’s all right, he doesn’t have to make himself choke or anything, but Mycroft doesn’t do anything of the sort. He only swallows, and Lestrade feels the soft pressure of Mycroft’s throat at the tip of his prick.

And then he is right there, and he nudges Mycroft back a bit, wants to give him the option of pulling off if he wants to. But Mycroft stays where he is, curled close, licking Lestrade into gentle shivers as the orgasm ebbs. As soon as he can gather enough muscle tension to move at all, he pulls Mycroft up, pulls him in.

Lestrade slants their mouths together, holding hard against Mycroft’s shoulders, and kissing all at once seems inadequate—everything seems inadequate—for showing Mycroft how—how _everything_. They turn over, legs tangled, and Lestrade wishes there were some physical way to do it all again, right this minute, but even where they’re pressed together at the hips, he feels hyper-sensitive.

He buries his face against Mycroft’s neck, licks more at the dried sweat there. Eventually, he rolls onto his back, breathes, his right arm and Mycroft’s left overlapping. “Ay, _Mio_.”

At the nickname, Mycroft glances at him. He curls their fingers together. “That was…all right?”

“Fantastic.” He stretches, points his toes, feels relaxed all the way to the marrow. “Are you certain you’ve never done that before?” He grins. Most people hack and sputter at least a little the first few times.

Mycroft clears his throat. “I don’t have a gag reflex anymore. Mental or physical.”

“I don’t want that story right now, do I?” An unbidden thought of all the things that do not sicken Sherlock in the slightest—

Mycroft shakes his head. “Not right now.”

For once, Lestrade feels okay with deferring it to later. And he nuzzles in against Mycroft’s throat, his Adam’s apple. “Still brilliant. All of it. That,” he says, lifting his head and tipping his chin slightly toward the door, slightly ajar, “was amazing.”

“You found my practice interesting?”

“No,” Lestrade says. “I found it sexy as fuck.” And it’s still sexy, just thinking about it. He has to pet Mycroft’s arms again. “How long have you been at it?”

“About a year. It’s been,” he says, “the best option.” He pulls the sheet back up. “I had a treadmill once.” The expression of distaste on his face makes Lestrade laugh a little. Mycroft turns his head to look at him. “Sweating.” He looks disgusted.

He shifts onto his side, slides his palm across Mycroft’s chest. “You seemed to be enjoying it a few minutes ago.” Lestrade is, himself, more than a little damp in places.

Mycroft catches his hand, nibbles at his fingertip a moment. “Well,” he says, “you have a way of making a number of things unexpectedly appealing.” He leans in, kisses him again. “And making them much easier than I expected.”

“Give me time,” he says. “I’ll be plenty difficult.” Lestrade edges his arm under the sheet again to pet Mycroft’s stomach. “But I still should apologize. I shouldn’t have stood there and watched you without you knowing.” Particularly not when it seems that Mycroft’s been deliberately (literally) in the closet about it.

“It’s fine,” Mycroft says. He turns onto his side, nudges Lestrade over, until they’re spooned together, his palm on the top of Lestrade’s thigh, his mouth on the back of Lestrade’s neck. “But you can’t watch every day you’re here. I’d never be able to concentrate.”

“Shove me out of bed next time. I’ll take up running again.” He keeps meaning to. He’d been diligent about it when he was with Will but fell off after that, and the last time he’d ended up chasing after Sherlock, he’d thought he’d collapsed a lung.

Mycroft makes a muffled, horrified sound into his shoulder. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I’ve been meaning to get in on John’s Sunday football when I can.” Plus a dozen other reasons, including not wanting Mycroft to be the only one doing any work in that area. “And you make me want to take better care of myself.” He turns, bites at Mycroft’s shoulder, though he has to move the sheet again to do it. “But, most importantly, then we’d have an excellent reason to shower together.” The grin that he gives Mycroft is designed to be his most winning, but Mycroft doesn’t take the bait.

He says, “Speaking of showering,” and he edges out of bed, doesn’t pull Lestrade with him. He says, “Rest,” kisses him. He wraps his dressing gown around himself, even though he’s only going ten feet down the hall.

Lestrade rolls and stretches himself over Mycroft’s side of the bed, tries not to think too hard about it. And he means to keep his eyes open, to see him come back into the room, but he startles awake at the sound of the wardrobe opening. Mycroft’s behind that screen again.

“Really?” he says to the ceiling.

“Hm?” Mycroft glances around the wooden edge, his shoulders already hung in white cotton.

“The screen?”

Mycroft’s eyes travel the white paper. “What about it?”

“You’re behind it.” He edges out of bed, and it wouldn’t matter if it were fifteen degrees cooler in the room, he wouldn’t put anything on, now. “And you really don’t have to be.” He hasn’t got virgin eyes, or virgin-anything-else, for that matter. And they’ve just had each other’s pricks in their mouths. That has to count for something.

Mycroft is wholly gone from sight again. “Force of habit, I suppose.” He comes around the far side of the screen, waist-coated and holding his jacket.

“I thought you were free today.” For Mycroft’s given value of free, which is to say, working from his mobile, but not expected anywhere.

“I am.” Mycroft comes in close, kisses him again. “I thought we’d go out for breakfast.” One hand slides its way down Lestrade’s ribs, over his hip. “Though I must say I’m in no hurry to see you dressed.” Mycroft’s lips against his ear.

Mycroft’s touch is wonderful, and there’s something erotic in standing naked in front of a man in a three-piece suit. He leans into the feeling, rests his forehead on Mycroft’s shoulder. Still—he curls both hands into the front of Mycroft’s waistcoat. “I was thinking the same of you.”

Mycroft strokes his back. “I’m sorry.”

Lestrade pushes away until he can look him properly in the eye. “You don’t have to be sorry about it. Just—why?” And he shifts his gaze over Mycroft’s shoulder, to the screen.

“We all have our peculiar habits, Gregory.” Mycroft steps away to select a tie. “Or have you forgotten your own?”

Restarting “Rebel, Rebel” three times every time he plays it because his first copy of the record skipped and now it doesn’t sound right not to do so—that’s not _that_ strange.

“That isn’t the point.” He takes down the red dressing gown, shrugs it on without tying it closed. “You live alone.” Mycroft could walk around starkers all day and all night if he wanted. “And if it made you feel more comfortable, I’d leave the room or turn my back.” The screen is…unnecessary. And most of Mycroft’s life seems to be arranged around the necessary (his wardrobe, his schedule, the way he seems to function perfectly on four-hour blocks of sleep) or the specifically pleasing (the custom-bound books, the bonsai) or where the two meet (beautiful tea sets, very fine furniture). There’s nothing middle of the road, no chipped mugs, no blankets that are warm but sort of scratchy. It doesn’t seem like Mycroft particularly _enjoys_ dressing behind the screen. And the screen itself—it’s not even authentic. He’d thought it was, but on the underside of the frame, it says _Made in Sweden_. It’s hand-assembled, two of the screws crooked on the side closest the wall.

Mycroft knots his tie in front of the tiny potted tree, and Lestrade has no idea how he manages it so perfectly without a mirror. “Why does it bother you so much?” His voice even, steady.

“It just does.” Articulating why is difficult; he doesn’t want Mycroft to feel like he _has_ to do anything, but—it doesn’t make sense, especially not after this morning. It’s not like walking into the toilet and having a piss while someone else is brushing his teeth.

Mycroft leans in, leaves a soft, wet kiss under his jaw. “And I just want a croissant today. I’ll have coffee for you in a moment, and if you don’t hurry, it’ll be cold.” Mycroft pets down his side, and then he’s walking down the hallway.

***

Days pass. Mycroft is away again. But work is interesting and Sherlock is interested enough that he tells Lestrade to come ‘round the flat with the details. When he gets there, though, Mrs. Hudson is also there, with tea, and more than a few minutes pass with her. She asks about Mycroft, how they’re getting on, and maybe Lestrade takes a kind of vindictive delight in telling her all about it while Sherlock pretends to ignore them.

“I never thought—” She pats his hand. “You’ll be good for him. Just the sort a body wants to come home to.” She casts a meaningful look at Sherlock, who puts his back to her more fully. Then she excuses herself with another admonition about the state of the flat. As soon as she’s gone, Sherlock helps himself to tea, goes to stand beside the window. And he says nothing, only watches him until Lestrade makes a point of pulling out his mobile.

“You know what she is, don’t you?” Sherlock holds his mug by the bottom, turns his body half toward the glass. John must be due home soon.

Lestrade scrolls through his messages, trying to ignore Sherlock. For two months it’s been like this, every time they’re alone, strange, needling questions. But he’s curious, too. Other than Mycroft himself, Sherlock is the only source of information about Mycroft that he has. But he says, “Landlady.” He contemplates the Jammy Dodgers Mrs. Hudson brought up. “Not your housekeeper.” It is much better being forgiven for the drugs bust. The tea’s very nice.

Sherlock fixes him with his flat, dead look.

Lestrade knows that Sherlock means Anthea. He won’t use a name for her because he says she hasn’t got one. Lestrade’s fully aware that he’s likely never going to know her actual name, but Anthea works just fine as a mode of address, and he sees nothing wrong with using it. They’ve even had a few conversations, proper ones, about motorbikes (which is the only subject she’ll _converse_ on, freely enough). And, at least once a week, Corrie asks about her, and Anthea will ask after the girls from time to time.

He settles back into the chair, his arms on the rests. He rather likes this chair; it’s comfortable. And since the advent of John, it’s not likely to contain corrosive chemicals or stray hypodermics at any given time. “If you’re trying to make me jealous, quit, please.” On that count, he’s more than satisfied. There’s more sexual tension between himself and Donovan than there is between Mycroft and Anthea. There may be more sexual tension between himself and this chair than between Mycroft and Anthea.

That stare again. It’s not the “you’re so much an idiot it makes me nauseous” expression. There’s something else. And now matter how used to Sherlock he thinks he’s gotten, the man keeps proving him wrong: it’s unnerving again.

“I thought you wanted to talk about the Prague business,” Lestrade says. The case: a box postmarked from the Czech Republic, delivered to one Stefanie Blaird, late of Charing Cross. Inside, two hands. Body parts as conveyance of threat, Lestrade is familiar with. Body parts sent to a woman dead for three years, less so.

Sherlock tips his gaze toward the curtain, nudges it further from the window frame with his ring finger. “No,” he says, the word elongating with the tilt of his body. His attention toward the door and the sidewalk below, all at once. John, then.

“Then why’m I here?” Sherlock doesn’t do social visits. And he’s done with his own day, a rare one in which the night is open; Mycroft’s on the continent, home tomorrow, and if he’s smart, Lestrade will take the opportunity to do the week’s worth of laundry before he’s completely out of socks. Both he and Mycroft continue to demonstrate that they’ve got no willpower, no sense of moderation when it comes to time they’re actually able to spend together. He’s certainly enjoying it, but it makes getting other tasks done very difficult.

“Because you’re not asking the right questions.” Sherlock’s voice flares as the downstairs door opens and closes.

Lestrade wants to roll his eyes, wants to throw the stray book lying on the floor at Sherlock’s head, actually, but the issue of questions—it resonates and not only because Sherlock’s given him variants on the same phrase before, at crime scenes. Mycroft evades questions like no one he’s ever known. Sherlock ignores the ones he doesn’t want to answer, makes a visual or verbal point of doing so, disregards with absolute intention. Mycroft makes people—makes _him_ —forget that he’s even asked something that Mycroft hasn’t answered, the whole thing just dissipating for hours, until it resurfaces the next day, like something caught between his teeth. Well after Mycroft’s in his rather safe and defensible “can’t exactly chat, socio-political crises to solve” position. Then when they’re together again, there’s football and snogging and Mycroft initiating more than snogging maybe even more often than he does.

John comes up the stairs, stops at the doorway when he sees Lestrade, when he sees the expressions. His steps slow, and he hangs up his coat slowly.

“What’s this all about?”

“Lestrade’s stumbling about, blind, deaf, dumb.” He lingers on the last word. “Per usual. But he was just going.”

Lestrade stands. “I was.” They can agree on that much.

John looks uneasily from Sherlock to him, and he stays where he is, squared in front of the doorway. Lestrade takes two steps, and he doesn’t want to make this into pushing past John, and John will move for him, eventually. But the moment’s enough to slow him down, enough to give him space to think, and the only thing he can consider doing is to ask Sherlock just what the hell he’s on about. So he does. After a fashion.

“Would you just bloody say it? Whatever I’m supposed to get and clearly don’t?” So he can get on with his night and maybe talk to the girls and not listen to Sherlock trying to make him paranoid.

Sherlock draws himself up, tucks his chin to his neck for a moment, and maybe he sighs. Maybe it’s exasperation. Lestrade’s having a difficult time caring.

“She’s not his assistant. She’s his exit strategy.” Sherlock’s hands twitch at his sides, and his jaw moves, like he’s popping it, like there’s something lodged between his molars. It reminds Lestrade of things he’s seen in spy movies, the false tooth full of cyanide.

To his credit, John only tilts his head, eyebrows furrowing. But that doesn’t give Lestrade any information, any key to read that.

“Whatever you like,” Lestrade says. “That’s my exit.” John steps aside, makes room for him to get to the stairs. He’s halfway down the stairs when Sherlock steps out onto the landing.

“Don’t let him not-answer you,” Sherlock says. “He needs—” Sherlock’s hands tight on the banister. “Stop letting him win.”

Lestrade just flaps one hand at him, steps onto the sidewalk. He takes the long way home, walks slowly, leaves his mobile in his pocket.

***

Mycroft is back in the country when he says he will be, but he is “not available” for two more days, save a few texts, which are rare enough from him. Those forty-eight hours feel like sandpaper on the back of his neck; what Sherlock said rasps and rasps. Because, as it generally is with Sherlock, the presentation is poor but there’s truth in it somewhere. Lestrade suspects it’s a truth he doesn’t particularly want.

So when Mycroft finally emerges from his duties, and they’re at Mycroft’s flat, he does something he swore a long time ago that he would never do: he takes Sherlock’s advice on something that doesn’t have to do with a case. Worse—Christ, so much worse—it has to do with his personal life.

Mycroft and he are both nursing a glass of wine, Mycroft because Lestrade’s never seen Mycroft drink more than two of anything, karaoke night excepted, and himself because he’s on edge, wants coffee, which is the last thing he _should_ have. So he puts the glass down because it feels like the stem is going to snap between his fingers.

And Mycroft, of course, sees that. Sees also that they’ve been apart for five days and they’re sitting on opposite sides of the sofa.

“Gregory,” Mycroft says. “Something’s on your mind.” The thread of uncertainty in his voice is somehow comforting. He hasn’t deduced all of it, then.

He can’t make himself start where he wants to. “Where were you this time?” It is a question.

Mycroft gives him the head tilt. Yes, he knows better.

“Why the extended debriefing?” That much, at least, is not usual; it hasn’t otherwise happened since they’ve been together. Usually Mycroft coming back from somewhere gives him at least a little bit of a reprieve.

“Surely you’ve noticed there’s all of this country, too.” Mycroft looks at him over the rim of his glass.

Not a specific answer, but sort of one. In a condescending, Holmesian way. Lestrade thinks about dating Will, about how he could sock Will in the arm for being like this, which is something he could never imagine doing with Mycroft.

Then Mycroft’s face softens. “You know I cannot discuss details. Even with you.” Mycroft’s hand lands on his knee.

Lestrade nods because there’s nothing else he can do. He knows that, and he knows why. He actually _endorses_ the why part of it. Not just for the (inter)national security aspect and professional conduct, but because if he lets himself think about the real magnitude of what Mycroft _does_ , it feels like his cerebellum’s going to fuse. It’s not possible to be the boyfriend of the British government, not possible to count the freckles on the British government’s shoulders, not possible to hide the British government’s match-day socks (because he’s discovered that there _are_ match-day socks). But he can do all of those things to Mycroft Holmes, the man, his lover and friend.

If he was looking for his opening, though, this is it. “But you can tell me what Anthea does,” he says. “You both said that she works for you, personally.”

“She’s my assistant. You’ve seen.” Mycroft draws his hand back, ostensibly to hold his wine while he reaches for the lamp-switch with his other hand. The room dims by half.

Lestrade crosses his arms. “You don’t need someone to manage your schedule or messages—you have a photographic memory.”

“Eidetic,” Mycroft says. There’s something gentle in his voice, in the correction. “And no, I don’t need it, but there are only so many hours in the day. As you lament so often. But we have right now.” Mycroft’s shin touches his.

There’s the turn. Back to him. He’s not biting this time. “What else does she do? And no, before you consider it, I’m not jealous.” Maybe he’s jealous of the basic time that Anthea gets to spend with Mycroft, but Mycroft’s said the same about Sergeant Donovan.

“I’ve never considered that. You’ve always known better.” Mycroft’s voice is calm, confident. Lestrade supposes he should be grateful for that—Mycroft gives him enough credit to be reasonable about Anthea’s advertised function. But not enough credit to give him the whole truth, whatever it is.

“Her _real_ duty.” Why her, why not someone—anyone—else? Why not a rotating staff, as people with actual _jobs_ do? Why does Anthea live in the flat below Mycroft’s? Why does Mycroft go nowhere without her? Because Lestrade’s learned: just because he can’t see her, that doesn’t mean she isn’t there.

“I fail to see what isn’t ‘real’ about the tasks she does.”

Lestrade sets his jaw and waits.

And Mycroft very nearly rolls his eyes. “You already know,” he says. “She acts, in certain capacities, as a bodyguard as well.” And Lestrade did know that. Everyone around Mycroft acts in that capacity, to an extent. Mycroft has explained, too, that he’s not exactly helpless himself, but Lestrade knows the difference between training and being comfortable using that training, and there’s little about Mycroft’s relationship to his body and his movement that suggests _comfort_ . Confidence, yes, when he needs it. Arrogance, hauteur, malevolent indifference when he wants it. But not comfort. Lestrade is thinking about that for a moment when something about the word “bodyguard” disquiets, strangely dissonant with what Sherlock had said.

Something must change on his face because Mycroft speaks again. Mycroft seldom does that, seldom clarifies or adds to an answer. He says, “Everything she does is in my best interests. That’s why I hired her. And you must trust that, Gregory.”

Which is still not a clear answer. And Lestrade didn’t want to have to say it himself, wanted Mycroft to come forward with it first, but he supposes he should know better. “Sherlock said she’s your exit strategy. I want you to tell me what that means.” He swallows. “All of what that means.”

At the mention of Sherlock’s name, Mycroft’s eyes close, just for a moment. So Sherlock was right about whatever it was he was right about.

“Sometimes,” Mycroft says, “my brother is incredibly inconvenient.”

“Shut up and talk.”

Mycroft is lucky he doesn’t comment on the paradox in the sentence. And for a moment, Mycroft doesn’t say anything. Lestrade can see him composing his response in his head, and he’s not sure if he’s relieved by that. If Mycroft has to arrange it, it means he’s taking the question seriously this time. It also means Mycroft has time to colour and shade his answer.

Mycroft says, “I know more about the internal affairs of this nation and a dozen others than most of the officials _in_ those nations, taken as a whole.” As though that’s news to anyone. Mycroft sits up a little straighter, settles his hands in his lap, right hand cupped in his left. “Gregory, I am a security nightmare. And it is _my_ duty to protect the best interests of my Britain. Surely you understand that.”

What he understands is that he doesn’t like where this is going, even though he’s not surprised. His mouth feels dry but he doesn’t want wine, isn’t sure he could make himself reach for the glass anyway. “Tell me,” he says, “what that _means_.”

The slightest upward tilt of Mycroft’s mouth at the last. “If something should happen to me, if I were to be held by someone more interested in what I know than in ransom, Anthea’s function is to ensure that said party does not get that information.” Mycroft is not looking at him now. “Whatever course of action that requires.”

Mycroft still hasn’t actually said it, not in plain English. But the assassin talk from dinner when the girls were here—“You hired your own assassin. You spend three-quarters of your time with a woman you’re paying to put a bullet—” Lestrade can’t say the rest of it. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

“I wouldn’t be brave enough to do it,” Mycroft says. And he actually laughs, a hollow, rattled sound, but a laugh nonetheless. “The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.” He breathes deep. “I’m a selfish person. I couldn’t be trusted with myself.”

“Right. So the reasonable thing—” He stops before it dissolves into a string of obscenity. And then he can’t keep it in. “You’re a fucking bureaucrat. You’re supposed to be behind a goddamned desk, making phonecalls and recording things where there aren’t supposed to be cameras.” Lestrade scrubs a hand through his hair, pulls on it. “You’re not supposed to be in places where—Jesus fucking Christ, you keep telling me it’s all behind the scenes.”

“Behind the scenes, Gregory, does require one to still be at the theatre.” Mycroft reaches, touches his wrist, nudges his hand away from his hair. Lestrade backs up, as far as the couch-arm will allow.

He wants a cigarette. He cannot remember the last time he’s wanted one _this_ badly. He doesn’t even have anything to bite. He covers his mouth with his hand, tries to breathe, tries to settle himself, because Mycroft is telling him, because he knows, he _knows_ that, on a daily basis, his own job is more dangerous most of the time. He knows that Mycroft is careful—possibly the most careful person he’s ever met. He knows Mycroft is _smart_ in ways he doesn’t even understand. And he knows that backing away when Mycroft reached for him hurt. But moving, right now, isn’t something he can do.

Mycroft’s chest rises and falls. “We all have to die someday, Gregory. Wouldn’t you rather have it at the hand of someone you trust?”

“No,” he says. “I’d rather be doing a hundred and twenty miles an hour on a motorcycle on the _Col de Turini_. When I’m ninety-seven.”

Mycroft smiles faintly. “Not the full hundred?”

Lestrade huffs, tries to find good humour. “That century shite’s for cricketers.” His interest in the joke falls apart, though. “This is honestly how you think about it?”

“I cannot afford romantic delusions.” And Mycroft sees the resultant bristle, the flare. Mycroft reaches for him, for his hands, pulls him in, until Lestrade is sitting beside him. “But it’s certainly not something I hope for. I’d like to live forever, thank you. Despite the world’s frequent shortcomings.” He takes a deep breath. “Barring that, I should like to be very, very old, and very fast asleep. I have little interest in being there, so to speak, when it happens.” He twines his fingers with Lestrade’s, and Lestrade feels the fight drain out of himself. He shifts, turns, manhandles Mycroft into lying down, and he stretches out against Mycroft’s side, half on top of him. If he’s holding on too tightly, Mycroft doesn’t mention it, only wraps both arms around him, too, and they lie there, quietly, for a long time.

Eventually, Mycroft says, softly, “Are you satisfied on that topic?”

“No, I’m not fucking satisfied.” Lestrade says. And sighs. “But I am answered. Thank you.” He is not certain how it will go, the next time he sees Anthea. His fingertips slide over the buttons of Mycroft’s waistcoat, and then he is undoing them, and the buttons on his shirt, until he’s able to put his bare cheek on Mycroft’s skin, to hear the beating of his heart.

Mycroft takes his hand, kisses his knuckles. Their fingers thread together.

“Tell me something,” Lestrade says. “Something about you. Something true.”

“Like what?” Mycroft seems taken aback by the question.

“Anything. Just tell me.” Without having to be asked. It’s not exactly Mycroft volunteering information, but it is something. “I need to know about you, too.”

“You do know about me. More than nearly anyone.” He taps Lestrade’s wrist, where the whole of his hand is now beneath Mycroft’s shirt. Fine: he knows Mycroft’s body, and that is rare, he understands, for Mycroft, but Lestrade’s known dozens of men’s bodies in his lifetime. He doesn’t even know where Mycroft grew up.

“Mycroft.”

He stops trying to talk his way out of it, at least, and after a few quiet breaths, he says, “When my voice was changing, I refused to speak to anyone. I didn’t say a word for six weeks. I signed everything, or mimed it. I was fourteen. That was when Sherlock learned to read lips correctly.”

“Not a sound? Not for anything?” Six weeks without laughing. He can’t imagine it.

“Not one.” Mycroft strokes the hair at his temple.

“Something else.”

“I haven’t been properly drunk since university.”

The way he says it—“But you’ve certainly faked it.” Of course he has. However: “Challenge accepted.”

“Gregory—”

He reaches up, puts his finger to Mycroft’s mouth. Protests won’t save him. Maybe Mycroft’s a chatty drunk. Maybe he over-shares. Lestrade can only hope. He moves his finger.

“More.”

“I enjoy ironing. It helps me think.”

“Then you can do mine.”

“I would be delighted to.” Mycroft strokes over his sleeve, where there are the faint wrinkles of a shirt abandoned far too long in the dryer.

“Again.”

“I prefer my toast after it cools and I have an actual fondness for haggis.” Mycroft’s actually smiling now.

“I’m disturbed. Something else.”

“I don’t like the Sex Pistols. I’m sorry, I tried, but I just cannot—I know you like them, but the very sound makes me want to start a war. And not in any of the ‘positive revolution’ sort of ways.” Mycroft tips his chin up, so they can see each other. “I like a great deal of the other things you’ve recommended, though.” His expression is so earnest. The Kinks have been in his stereo, in the fourth slot of the CD changer, for more than a month now, and he puts on The Clash whenever they’re at Lestrade’s. He still asks if he may, but he usually asks while he’s already taking the record from its sleeve. Lestrade is waiting—hoping—for the day he stops asking permission for that.

“You don’t have to like everything I like.” Lestrade means that. “I’ll still like you.” More than like, but he’s never said it, not as an adult.

“You don’t have to approve of everything I do.” Mycroft’s hand drifts slowly over his back. “I will still cherish you.” The feeling of Mycroft’s lips on his forehead.

Point taken. He sighs. “You promise me,” Lestrade says, “that you’ll be careful. As careful as you can be.”

“Of course I will.” Mycroft’s fingertips slide gently along his jaw. “And you’ll do the same.”

He nods into Mycroft’s chest. It’s only fair.

**Author's Note:**

> This one comes with a "soundtrack" of sorts, in that I'm sharing with you the two songs that Lestrade made me listen to for the last two weeks of writing this section. And some Rodrigo y Gabriela favorites because, well, as you have been informed, they are awesome.
> 
> [The Clash--The Magnificent Seven](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcHL8efKKPE)
> 
> [The Clash--This is Radio Clash](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-t52zc8Ex4)
> 
> [Rodrigo y Gabriela--Hanuman](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpI2JSn2o0A&ob=av2e)
> 
> [Rodrigo y Gabriela--Ixtapa](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J28KhdB8kE)
> 
> [And a little of Bowie's Rebel, Rebel for Reasons](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa6bI_95G9I)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Looking after you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/440386) by [myheartinhiding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myheartinhiding/pseuds/myheartinhiding)




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